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Furthermore,
like the American Indians, faced with the overwhelming economic,
political and military forces lined up against them, many Palestinians
have turned to a religious ideology --militant fundamentalist
Islam-- that unites them as a people in their opposition to Israel
and the U.S., which they see as the principal supporter of Israel in the
world today and, therefore, complicit in their impoverishment and the
dispossession of their land. In addition, just as the Indians turned to
spiritual/political leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull Tecumsah,
Tentswakawa and Neolin in their resistance to American colonization, so
also have many Palestinians and other Muslims turned to
religious/political movements and leaders that personify their
opposition to what they perceive as Israeli colonialism and American
neocolonialism, including
Hamas and
Hezbollah. And just as the Israeli and U.S. Governments today consider
it necessary to eliminate radical Islamists, who they perceive as a
threat to regional and global political stability, the U.S. Government
considered it necessary to remove and arrest Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse,
Geronimo and other Indian leaders who they believed "threatened the peace"
in the 19th century.
By
studying religio-political movements such as the Ghost
Dance,
we can better understand similar movements elsewhere, including the
rise of political Islam. American
colonization, for example, had a similar negative effect on the indigenous
Hispanic population of New Mexico, which had occupied that region for
over 200 years. Political resistance emerged among the Hispanic
population almost immediately following American occupation of New
Mexico, and it took both political and religious forms. In the same
way, earlier Spanish colonization of the Southwest led to the Great
Pueblo Revolt
in 1680 in which all the Pueblo villages throughout Arizona and New
Mexico united under a prophet named Pope' to expel the Spanish from
their land. Similarly, Jewish opposition to both Greek
and Roman colonization of Palestine led to several instances of religiously
inspired political/military revolts --beginning
with the Macabbeean
Revolt
in 167-160 BCE through to the revolt under
Simon bar
Kokhba
in 132-136 CE. Indeed,
Jews waged almost continuous resistance to Roman colonization of
Palestine during the entire
first century CE. It
would be impossible to understand the origin of Christianity (and
the other religious movements that arose in Palestine at that time)
if it were not viewed within this context. For nearly two centuries,
Palestine was a land of intense religio-political turmoil leading on
several occasions to the slaughter and crucifixion of thousands of
Jews by Roman authorities, with thousands of others sold into
slavery. As
Marvin Harris noted in his 1974
book,
Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches,
From the
gospels alone, you would never know that Jesus spent most of his
life in the central theater of one of history's fiercest guerrilla
uprisings. You could never guess that in 68 AD the Jews went on to
stage a full-scale revolution that required the attention of six
Roman legions . . . (about 36,000 soldiers) . . . under the command
of two future Roman emperors before it was brought under control.
The direct occupation of the territory of a conquered people was
recommended by Machiavelli as one of the most effective means for controlling
conquered land
and the subjugated people on that land. According to Machiavelli,
Unless
you establish settlements, you will have to garrison large numbers of
mounted troops and infantry. Settlements do not cost much and . .
.(they can be established and maintained) . . . at little or no personal
expense . . . (to the political leaders). . . . settlements
are economical and more faithful, and do less harm; and those who are
injured cannot hurt you because . . . they are scattered and poor.
(Machiavelli,
The Prince, p. 10)
Both
the U.S. and Israel have adhered to Machiavelli's directive. The
U.S. passed the Homestead
Act
in 1862. As a result of this act, over 270 million acres of former
Indian land was made available to American citizens. Any head of
household at least 21 years of age could claim a 160 acre parcel of
land. The Homestead Act produced many a "land rush" like
the one pictured below and contributed substantially to the complete U.S. occupation of
Indian lands. Several other laws were passed that deprived Indians of
their land, including (among others) the
Indian Removal Act
(1830) and the
General Allotment Act
(aka. the
Dawes Act
;1887). Most of the land that was set aside for Indians
is only a fraction of their former territories. Moreover, most
Indian reservations were reduced in size as the expanding American
population required more land and resources. As a result, most of
the land that was eventually given to Indians was "marginal"
land that was not desired by whites. Furthermore, the colonization
of North America by Euro-American immigrants was rationalized and justified
through recourse to the doctrine of
Manifest
Destiny,
the belief that colonization of the entire continent was a mission
ordained by God.
Scenes of the Oklahoma Land
Rush, 1889
The Israeli Government has followed a similar policy. It has, like the U.S., promoted an aggressive immigration program,
which brings Jewish settlers from around the world to Israel. These immigrants are the
primary colonists of the new settlements in the occupied
territories and enjoy the rights of full citizenship that are withheld
from the neighboring Palestinian population. As Machiavelli noted, the settlements are "more
faithful", that
is, they are more supportive and less critical of government policy with
regard to Palestinian land, just as those living in the American West were
more committed to the occupation of Indian land and the removal -even
killing- of Native Americans than were those living in
the East. Indeed, the settlers --Israeli and American-- owe/owed their homes and their
very livelihood to that policy. It would
hardly be in their interests not to support it. Israel, likewise, employs an
ideological/religious justification similar to "Manifest Destiny" to
justify its colonization of all of Palestine.
Zionism
and the concept of
Eretz
Israel
together express
the belief that the colonization
of all of Palestine represents a reclaiming of the Biblical Kingdom of Israel
as ordained by God. As with the
Indian-White conflict that occurred throughout the American
West, Israel has been the scene of numerous
violent confrontations between settlers and the Palestinians who have lost
their land, as well as of an ongoing resistance by the Palestinians to the
Israeli Government. Both sides see themselves as the victims of the
other side's violence. This should not be surprising. Americans and the
Indians in the 18th and 19th centuries viewed each other in much the same
terms as do the
Israelis and Palestinians today.
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The
lesson in all of this is very simple: while specific events of
history do not repeat themselves, the
processes that
underlie historical developments
certainly do. While many individuals frequently
repeat the above statement as a warning against people acting today in a
way that will result in outcomes
that have occurred in the past, the statement does not reflect a realistic
view of the causes underlying historical and contemporary social
behavior. The implication is that people are able to control the
social systems within which they exist. It is highly unlikely that individuals who are directly
involved in a situation involving social or political conflict are able to
stand outside that situation and view it objectively. One of
the assumptions of thinking in
social
science terms
is that
a given set of circumstances will likely (i.e., predictably) lead to a
given set of consequences (i.e.,
"given a, . . . then b").
Comparable behaviors, including ethnic conflict, genocide and
warfare, have recurred repeatedly throughout history precisely because people
will respond predictably to similar circumstances in similar ways.
The same developments that have occurred as a result of American and
Israeli colonization also occurred in Australia and South Africa, to
name but two other examples. The remarkable similarity of these four
cases (and others) has led anthropologists and other social scientists
to develop the concept of
Settler Colonialism
to define that type of colonialism that involves the physical occupation
of indigenous peoples' lands by outsiders leading to the forceful
alienation of native peoples from that land and the economic, social,
cultural and political impoverishment that results.
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Below is a recent article
on the expansion of
Israeli settlements from
The
Economist:
West Bank settlements
Swallowing
all before them
Oct
31st 2002
The Economist
Despite the
intifada, Israel intensifies colonization of the West Bank
KNOWING that it will take more than a cut in subsidies to reverse what
they see as the gravest threat to their dream of a viable state,
Palestinians were underwhelmed by the Labour Party's decision to leave
Ariel Sharon's coalition over the money that the Israeli government
proposes to spend on settlements. There are now 123 Jewish settlements in
the West Bank, and 12 in occupied East Jerusalem, housing some 380,000
settlers who share the territory with 2.4m Palestinians. They do not share
it equally.
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According to a recent study by B'Tselem, an Israeli human-rights
group, the West Bank settler population doubled in size during the
seven-year Oslo peace process, and the settlements' territorial reach
has now been extended to cover nearly 42% of the West Bank. This huge
expansion has been achieved largely through the construction of
settler-only bypass roads and military zones which serve to integrate
the settlements with Israel proper.
What was interim during Oslo has become
formalised during the intifada, says Yehezkel Lein, a B'Tselem
researcher. Under the fire of conflict, settlements, roads and zones
have in effect become Israel's new military borders in the West Bank,
enabling the army to isolate Palestinian villages one from the other,
and to reoccupy six of the eight main Palestinian towns.
The changes are most noticeable along Israel's
northern border with the West Bank and around East Jerusalem, two
areas Israel seeks to annex in any final settlement with the
Palestinians. This is where most of Israel's settlement expenditure is
being concentrated, says Mussi Raz, a member of the Knesset from the
left-wing Meretz Party. Chunks of the northern West Bank have been cut
off by the “security fence”—actually a grid of barriers, roads,
trenches and sensors—that it is now being created along the pre-1967
border. |
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Around East Jerusalem, the fence is mapped to go
even deeper into the West Bank. Palestinians fear that it will eventually
envelop not only the East Jerusalem settlements (which the Israelis do not
count as settlements as they long ago unilaterally annexed the city) but
also vast urban blocks, such as Maale Adumim, in the West Bank. The
result, they say, will be to cut off the 276,000 Palestinians in East
Jerusalem and its environs from their West Bank hinterland. Moreover, the
implantation of Jewish enclaves within the densely populated Palestinian
areas in and around the Old City is being encouraged with government
money.
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This mixing of populations is presumably intended to prevent any
return to the “understandings” on Jerusalem reached by Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators, especially at the Taba talks in January 2001.
It is, says Menachem Klein, an adviser to the Israeli delegation at
the talks, Mr Sharon's answer to Bill Clinton's “parameter” that what
is Jewish should be Israeli, and what is Arab should be Palestinian.
A similar logic appears to be behind the 100 or so settler outposts
that now pepper the West Bank, and whose “illegal” establishment
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the Labour leader and departing defence
minister, had at last decided to reverse. Begun as caravans on tops of
hills, the outposts often develop into “legal” settlements.
Take Itamar, a settlement near Nablus. Home to fewer than 500
settlers, it has established seven outposts, some ten kilometres (six
miles) beyond its built-up area. Earlier this month, the last families
from the neighbouring Palestinian village of Yanun were forced to
leave their homes after years of armed harassment from Itamar's
settlers. It was the first full evacuation of a Palestinian village
since the 1967 war.
The Palestinians ask for a full freeze on
settlement construction as a first step to their evacuation or
dismantlement. They presented this demand to William Burns, the State
Department's special envoy, when he was in Jericho last week. Mr Burns
is touring the region with the draft of a “roadmap” to resolve the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict within three years. Among a slew of other
demands, the roadmap calls for dismantling the outposts by December,
and a freeze “on all settlement activity” by next May. But
Palestinians believe that only a handful of the outposts will be
removed, and Mr Sharon has consistently ruled out a freeze.
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Of Related Interest . . .
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